Is this the end of Facebook?

It’s time to admit it - Facebook screwed up. And the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal has left them a bit bruised.

But what does that mean for Facebook? And what does it mean for you?

Is this the end of Facebook as we know it?

People are not happy

It’s no secret that a lot of advertisers are not happy with the recent developments. After all, with the ads they’re paying for they’re essentially investing into Facebook.

Consequently, a lot of companies decided to opt out of Facebook Advertising. They didn’t want to be a part of their story anymore. They didn’t want to contribute to the platform that robbed so many people of their personal information.

I lost a couple of clients myself. While Facebook Ads presented a big part of their income and lead generation, they valued other people’s privacy a lot more.

Should you quit Facebook?

Should you, as an advertiser, quit Facebook too with respect to people’s privacy?

No.

In this chaos, it is important to realize that this was not your fault. You had nothing to do with the scandal, even as an advertiser that consequently supports Facebook. You shouldn’t punish yourself for it.

If you really can’t stand Facebook’s reaction, then no one should stop you from quitting. But if you’re on the fence about all this, not exactly knowing what’s the right approach, then keep your ads running.

That said, you have to realize that moving forward, things are going to get different.

Changes that are about to happen?

Facebook is becoming stricter. No doubt about that. That’s why they’re discontinuing a couple of features Facebook advertisers relied on.

No more Facebook Partner Categories Targeting

It’s a well-known fact that Facebook is holding an immense targeting power. Not only you can target by interests people have expressed on Facebook, but you also had the opportunity of targeting data that was provided by 3rd party providers.

Here are a few examples of targeting available through Partner Categories:

New home buyers,

Automotive shoppers,

Company size,

Business travelers,

Corporate executives,

Retail purchase behavior.

I would be lying if I said this change is not going to affect me at all. My clients an I relied on this data. Not only that, the data provided was accurate and extremely effective to use for targeting.

What now?

If you’ve been using Partner Categories and you want your campaigns to be affected as little as possible, it’s time for in-depth tests and experiments.

Research your target audience’s interests and behaviors and start testing different combinations of targeting options to find the perfect mixture that performs as well as previous targeting setup using Partner Categories.

It’s not going to be easy, but it’s far from impossible.

Changes to Audience Insights

Besides Partner Categories, Audience Insights was a tool I was using as frequent as possible. It provides a lot of information about your target audience, like Facebook Pages they liked, interests they have, demographic information, household income information, etc.

Some of the data you were able to see inside Audience Insights was provided by 3rd party data mining companies.

Since Facebook is discontinuing the relationship with said providers, Audience Insights tool will change as well.

Please note that this is not a confirmed information by Facebook, but a logical next step, something I have seen being taken into effect already.

For the past few weeks Audience Insights haven’t been working for me and other colleagues I was speaking with. It’s impossible to analyze your Custom Audiences. Whatever you do, Facebook says that the data is not available.

We’re still waiting on the official explanation, but there’s no doubt that changes are coming. Fast.

It’s still a powerful tool, hands down.

Whatever changes Facebook will introduce in the upcoming weeks, Facebook Ads platform is still an incredibly powerful advertising platform one could use. That fact will not change anytime soon.

Companies will still use it and increase their profits with the help Facebook Ads.

What you do is up to you.

Will you leave Facebook Ads behind in respect to people’s privacy?

Or are you willing to adapt to the change and continue generating great income with Facebook Ads?